


prometheus

by allieteration



Category: It Lives in the Woods (Visual Novel)
Genre: Choices, Choices: Stories You Play - Freeform, ILITW, It Lives in the Woods, Other, Pixelberry - Freeform, Playchoices - Freeform, Screenplay/Script Format
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 21:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13598946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allieteration/pseuds/allieteration
Summary: a horror genre screenplay in which you encounter a window of opportunity to salvage an old and harrowed friend—but with the weight of your life and an impending darkness suspended in the balance.





	prometheus

**Author's Note:**

> ensuing the finale for it lives in the woods, a visual novel by pixelberry and choices: stories you play, and the buzz that’s surrounded it, i, whilst pursuing my experimentation in screenplay formatting, decided to explore my interpretation of a horrific conclusion to such a compelling read. although au in nature, it follows the general concept of mc (aka the “you” character) “taking over” for jane to live on with this menacing redfield entity. i wanted to emphasize the internal conflict jane experiences as she is both a human child and a demonic life form. i’m no stephen king, but i’ve found entertainment in dabbling in the genre, and i hope that you feel that as you read along. constructive criticism is always welcome, too! thanks for a terrific ride to a ghastly crew.

FADE IN:

INT. UNKNOWN

  
YOU are amidst a melancholy, moonless nightfall; somewhere that is not here or there, but rattles your ribcage with an everlasting despondency. Nothing but a pair of dilapidated doors in the distance environ YOU.

VOICE  
_You came._

YOU startle, eyeline darting left to right, up to down. Goosebumps surface across your benumbed flesh. YOU strain your throat for a bloodcurdling wail, but muster a measly hoarse whimper.

VOICE  
Don’t worry. Your voice will be ready when you need it.

YOU are awestruck, muscles tautening and breath hastening as a torrent of alarm becomes a maelstrom of steadfast fearfulness. YOU turn on your heels to flee, but are thrusted backwards onto a terrain that is there, yet isn’t.

VOICE  
Do you remember me?

The VOICE materializes before YOU, a vortex of onyx particles akin to that of an astronomical black hole metamorphosing into a little girl, strawberry blonde tresses ascending with a paranormal vehicle. Her irises are blackened and fathomless, and she diffuses a shadowy, malevolent aura. Her powder blue dress with an indigo bow is tattered and sullied with soot.

YOU  
_Jane?_

JANE  
I am _a_ Jane. There are many of us. We all know you. We know your friends. And we know the things you are trying to do to stop us.

YOU blink again and again until wrestling your eyelids rigidly to a close with skepticism. As if she is a telepath, JANE affirms your suspicions.

JANE  
This is not a nightmare. This is your reality. You must face it as I have faced death and rebirth.

YOU  
I don’t understand—

JANE  
You are not expected to. What you _are_ expected to understand is that you must forget those people you fight so hard to protect from us.

YOU acknowledge that JANE is being truthful; this is not a tribulation, but a trial. An opportunity to rescue JANE from her predestined fate. Determination engulfs YOU like that of a mushroom cloud swallowing a cityscape, and YOU strategize your interaction with your old friend.

YOU  
Jane, you asked if I remembered you—but do you remember us? Not “those people”? We were invincible. We’ve grown older, and we’re not anymore. You _have_ to stop hurting us.

Abruptly, as if provoked, JANE becomes more _JANE_. We becomes I; us becomes me.

JANE  
I remember…I remember you **letting this happen to me.**

YOU  
I didn’t—I would never!

JANE  
I remember being ripped from the inside-out, and I remember being put together for it to happen again. Infinitely. Bitter and lonesome.

YOU  
I’m sorry, Jane.

A gale from nowhere gusts against YOU, JANE erupting like a volcano that’s been stagnant for millenia. She screams, ear-splitting and distorted.

JANE  
**_YOU DESERVE TO BE HERE. NOT ME. YOU DESERVE THIS PAIN._**

YOU  
_I wish it had been me!_

JANE  
You do?

YOU discern a flicker of humanity, the tenebrous ebony of JANE’s eyes dissipating to unveil a bloodshot hazel. She—or what’s left of her—weeps soundlessly, war-weary in expression.

YOU  
Do you think I haven’t had that day on _a_ _fucking loop_ in my head since it happened? Do you think I wanted to be helpless as I watched you _die_? As I watched the people I hold dearest to me—especially Noah— _suffer_? I told you I’d keep you safe. We always told you that, and we couldn’t do it. _We_ _couldn’t_ _do_ _it!_

YOU collapse to your knees, sobbing into your palms. JANE, being glaringly wrenched in two directions, peers down at you with contempt and disdain.

JANE  
That is where you are wrong. I never died.

YOU  
What would you say happened then?

JANE  
_Something much worse._

YOU  
Please, don’t—

JANE  
Your friends are going to die. I am going to kill them. What’s inside of me—this Redfield—it makes me **strong**. When I was here, in your world, I was weak. I was scared. I no longer have to be.

YOU  
I know you, Jane. I know you’re still scared. It’s okay to be.

JANE  
Fear is the human condition, and I am something much greater than human.

YOU  
Where’s your whistle, Jane? Do you still have it? Do you remember what I told you?

A head of soulfulness rears itself at the mention of JANE’S cherished prize. YOU witness the eight-year old from a decade ago before you once again.

JANE  
_…Scared…protect…_

YOU  
Do you need me to protect you now, Jane?

JANE  
Why would you do that? After all that Redfield has made me do to people? To _you_?

YOU  
We love you, Jane. After everything, we still love you. I imagine every day what you’d be like. Do you want to hear what I think you’d be doing?

JANE  
_…Y-yes…_

YOU  
You would still be pleading with your parents to buy you a terrarium to keep the creatures you find from the woods in. You wouldn’t recoil at horror movies anymore; you would seek them out because you know how it feels to be terrified, and you can finally be in control of it. You would be pestering Noah, and he would pester you back, and despite your irritation, you would love and defend one another to the ends of the earth. You would still love the color blue, and you would still see it in everything; that it isn’t sad like everybody says it is. You wouldn’t be so angry. You wouldn’t be a Prometheus.

JANE  
_Prometheus_ …

YOU  
Yes. He gave fire to humankind, and Zeus sentenced him to be shackled to a boulder where an eagle would visit him each day and eat his liver. It’s like you said: _put together and torn apart._ Infinitely.

JANE  
You are trying to trick me!

YOU  
Jane—NO! No, I promise I’m not!

JANE  
Do not make promises you can’t keep, remember?

YOU  
Jane, I’m trying to help you! I can rescue you from this. We _all_ can. All I need is for you to fight Redfield.

JANE  
Redfield is what we are; he has made us. Would you fight your creator?

YOU  
I would if my creator was destroying me and who I know myself to be. That’s what Redfield is doing, Jane. He never made you into anything; he only made things out of you. Anguish. Devastation. _Death_.

JANE  
You misunderstand—

YOU  
I understand, crystal clear. What I understand is that you might be Prometheus, but you’re Zeus, too. All you want, and will ever want with Redfield, is to dynamite something that could be everything you’ve been searching for. Fire brought fortitude and belonging to humans. Us, _your_ _friends_ —we are that fire.

JANE  
How…how do I stop?

YOU  
_Let me take over for awhile._

JANE  
I want to go…home. To Noah. Mommy and Daddy.

YOU  
_Yes!_ Yes, you can go home, Jane. Take my hand. Do you remember the song we used to sing together? When we would sit on the top of the slide at the park and watch the lake ripple with wildlife?

JANE  
_May God bless and keep you always_  
_May your wishes all come true_  
_May you always do for others_  
_And let others do for you_  
_May you build a ladder to the stars_  
_And climb on every rung_  
_And may you stay forever young_

YOU  
_May you grow up to be righteous_  
_May you grow up to be true_  
_May you always know the truth_  
_And see the lights surrounding you_  
_May you always be courageous_  
_Stand upright and be strong_  
_May you stay forever young……_

Together, sweet-temperedly crooning the melody, YOU and JANE amble like an instrumental adagio to the aforementioned set of doorways. With a tremor, you envelope your fingertips around the tarnished doorknob whilst JANE follows suit at the opposite entrance. Gaze padlocked within one another, JANE softheartedly smiles at YOU, a brilliant illumination corkscrewing around her from her befriend high tops and upward. She looks young again. Perhaps even alive again.

As you breach your threshold, a heinous dusk asphyxiating you, your eyes gouging from their sockets, you feel your heart decouple from yourself. Thus, your eagle comes.

 

** END **


End file.
